The threat of tuberculosis is not a new one. Traces of the disease have been found in ancient mummies, and in the mid-1800s the ailment—then known as consumption—accounted for up to a quarter of the deaths in London, New York, and Paris.
A turning point in people’s relationship to consumption occurred in 1882 when the microbiology pioneer Robert Koch showed that the rod-shaped bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis was behind the scourge.
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